This type of system is employed in particular in the area of industrial automation. A major task in the creation of an automation solution is the programming. This involves hardware signals of a controller system—that is input and output values of a controller device—technically being connected to a terminal and then logically linked in a meaningful manner in an engineering system to program elements, especially for programmable logic controllers (PLCs). To enable the desired hardware signal to be referenced it is necessary to enter an address which will be logically assigned to a hardware signal. These addresses are formed according to conventions which the user must know and which differ from system to system. With an incorrectly used address—with syntactical errors—the engineering system can indicate an error; with other input errors the result is malfunctions of the controller system.
For example the address convention for SIMATIC S7 is as follows: First a letter (E for input signals, A for output signals), followed by the byte address, a point and a bit number. The byte addresses begin at 0 and are increased for each module by 4, i.e. 0, 4, 8. The bit addresses are 0 . . . 7. A valid address is thus for example “E4.7”.
In addition it is possible in many systems to allocate a symbol to each of the individual addresses. The user can thus assign the individual hardware signals “meaningful” names, i.e. can give them names which convey a certain meaning to the user. The problem with this solution is that a user who does not know the convention is hardly in a position to plan an automation system project without assistance. This applies especially to those users migrating from one system to another, since each manufacturer as a rule has their own convention. Furthermore those making the change find it difficult to understand how the different mappings (symbol→address→hardware signal) function. This is a significant barrier to getting started with a system.